Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/July 4
This is a list of selected July 4 anniversaries that appear in the "On this day" section of the Main Page. To suggest a new item, in most cases, you can be bold and edit this page. Please read the selected anniversaries guidelines before making your edit. However, if your addition might be controversial or on a day that is or will soon be on the Main Page, please post your suggestion on the talk page instead.
Please note that the events listed on the Main Page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are. Only four to five events are posted at a time and thus not everything that is "most important and significant" can be listed. In addition, an event is generally not posted this year if it is also the subject of the scheduled featured article, featured list or picture of the day.
To report an error when this appears on the Main Page, see Main Page errors. Please remember that this list defers to the supporting articles, so it is best to achieve consensus and make any necessary changes there first.
Images
Use only ONE image at a time
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Fireworks over the Washington Monument
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The U.S. Declaration of Independence
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The Grand Union Flag of the Thirteen Colonies in 1776 -
Crab Nebula -
A Waffen-SS Tiger I engages another tank -
Alice Liddell -
The Brazilian cruiser Bahia -
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Ineligible
| Blurb | Reason |
|---|---|
| Aphelion of Earth (16:24 UTC, 2016); | refimprove section |
| Feast day of Ulrich of Augsburg (Roman Catholicism); | refimprove |
| 1187 – Saladin defeated Guy of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem, at the Battle of Hattin and captured the True Cross. | refimprove section |
| 1802 - In West Point, New York, the United States Military Academy began operations. | featured on March 16 |
| 1862 – In a rowing boat on the River Thames from Oxford to Godstow, author Lewis Carroll told Alice Liddell and her sisters a story that would eventually form the basis for his book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. | refimprove section |
| 1894 – The Republic of Hawaiʻi was proclaimed at Aliʻiolani Hale in Honolulu, with Sanford B. Dole as the first president. | refimprove section |
| 1943 – World War II: Fighting began in the Battle of Kursk, the largest full-scale battle in history as well as the largest series of armoured clashes. | featured on August 23 |
| 1988 – Kylie Minogue's first album, Kylie, was released, going on to top the charts in the UK, New Zealand, and Japan. | Date not referenced. |
| 2012 – CERN announced the discovery of the Higgs boson elementary particle after a 40-year search for its existence. | Higgs boson: original research; Search: expansion |
Eligible
- 414 – Aelia Pulcheria proclaimed herself regent over her brother Theodosius II and made herself Augusta and Empress of the Eastern Roman Empire.
- 1610 – Polish–Muscovite War: The outnumbered forces of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth defeated the Tsardom of Russia at the Battle of Klushino.
- 1837 – The Grand Junction Railway, the world's first long-distance railway, opened between Birmingham and Liverpool.
- 1855 – The first edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass was published, and it went on to become one of the most important collections of American poetry.
- 1898 – The French ocean liner SS La Bourgogne collided another ship in dense fog near Sable Island and sank, resulting in 549 deaths, mostly passengers.
- 1941 – German AB-Aktion in Poland: After capturing Lwów, the Nazis executed professors of the University of Lwów along with their families.
- 1941 – The Holocaust in Latvia: During the German occupation, a number of synagogues in Riga were set on fire, killing many Jews who were confined in them.
- 1945 – The Brazilian cruiser Brazilian cruiser Bahia was accidentally sunk by one of its own crewmen, killing more than 300 and leaving the rest adrift in shark-infested waters.
- 1950 – The United States' anti-communist propaganda source Radio Free Europe made its first broadcast aimed at Czechoslovakia.
- 1951 – William Shockley announced the invention of the junction transistor, for which he, John Bardeen, and Walter Houser Brattain won the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics.
- 1954 – Four CIA officers arrived in Guatemala to begin Operation PBHistory in an attempt to justify the United States' overthrow of President Jacobo Árbenz one week prior.
- 1965 – The first Annual Reminder, a series of early pickets organized by homophile organizations, one of the earliest LGBT demonstrations in the United States, took place at Independence Hall in Philadelphia.
- 1976 – Israel Defense Forces raided Uganda's Entebbe International Airport to free hostages taken by hijackers on Air France Flight 139.
- 1982 – Four Iranian diplomats were kidnapped after they were stopped at a checkpoint in northern Lebanon by Lebanese Phalange forces and their fates remain unknown.
- 2005 – The NASA space probe Deep Impact collided with the nucleus of the comet Tempel 1, excavating debris from its interior so that its composition could be studied.
- Born/died: Usama ibn Munqidh (b. 1095) · Samuel Richardson (d. 1761) · John Adams and Thomas Jefferson (d. 1826) · Pîhtokahanapiwiyin (d. 1886)
July 4: Republic Day in the Philippines (1946); Independence Day in the United States (1776)
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- 1054 – Chinese astronomers recorded the sudden appearance of a "guest star", later identified as the supernova that created the Crab Nebula.
- 1776 – In Philadelphia, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence (signing pictured), announcing that the thirteen American colonies were no longer a part of the British Empire.
- 1918 – World War I: An Allied force led by the Australian general John Monash was victorious in the Battle of Hamel, demonstrating the effectiveness of combined arms techniques in trench warfare.
- 1943 – The aircraft carrying Władysław Sikorski, Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile, crashed, killing him and fifteen others, leading to several conspiracy theories.
- 1954 – In what is known as "The Miracle of Bern", West Germany defeated Hungary 3–2 to win the FIFA World Cup.
Philippe de Monte (d. 1603) · Christian Fürchtegott Gellert (b. 1715) · Geraldo Rivera (b. 1943)